''Scientific American Frontiers'' was an American science television program aired by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

from 1990 to 2005. The show was a companion program to the ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' magazine, and primarily covered new

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

and discoveries in science and medicine. The Chedd-Angier Production Company, which had recently produced '' Discover: The World of Science'', produced the show for PBS. Frontiers typically aired once every two to four weeks.

Hosts

The show first aired on October 1, 1990, with

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

professor

Woodie Flowers Woodie Claude Flowers (November 18, 1943 – October 11, 2019) was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His specialty areas were engineering design and product development; he held the Pappalardo Pr ...

hosting until the spring of 1993. Actor

Alan Alda Alan Alda (; born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor, screenwriter, and director. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the war co ...

became the permanent host from the fall season of 1993 and continued until the show ended in 2005. The show was also billed as ''Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers''. In one segment, Alda became car sick while driving an experimental,

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

vehicle. In 2005, in his memoir, ''Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned'', Alda recalls his

intestine The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans ...

s becoming strangulated while in the mountains of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

for the show, an incident in which he nearly died due to the remote location.

Format

Most programs included three short documentaries, but some shows follow a different pattern. Some young viewers of the program later appeared as adult guests in later series, stating that the program inspired them to continue their scientific pursuits. The shows are now available online at the Chedd-Angier website.

Episodes

Season 1 (1990-91)

Season 2 (1991-92)

Season 3 (1992-93)

Season 4 (1993-94)

Season 5 (1994-95)

Season 6 (1995-96)

Season 7 (1996-97)

Season 8 (1997-98)

Season 9 (1998-99)

Season 10 (1999-2000)

Season 11 (2000-01)

Season 12 (2001-02)

Season 13 (2002-03)

Season 14 (2004)

Season 15 (2005)

Sources

External links

*, where all shows and transcripts are freely available for viewing.
Archived site
- contains extra interviews, behind-the-scenes information. *

References

{{reflist PBS original programming 1990s American documentary television series 2000s American documentary television series 1990 American television series debuts 2005 American television series endings Scientific American